Tuesday, April 27, 2010

"This Song" Is Dedicated To The Midknight Review

I was listening to "This Song" off of George Harrison's 1976 album Thirty Three & 1/3, and I couldn't help but think of the accusations made by John Smithson of The Midknight Review. "This Song" was written after Harrison unsuccessfully argued that his song "My Sweet Lord" was not based off of the 1963 Chiffons hit, "He's So Fine."

After he lost the case, Harrison wrote "This Song", which released his frustration of the infringement case in the form of an uptempo, piano-driven boogie. "This Song" was released as the leadoff single for Thirty Three & 1/3 and reached #25 on the American pop charts. It features Billy Preston on piano and organ, and Monty Python's Eric Idle calling out a falsetto "Could be 'Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch'", "No, sounds more like 'Rescue Me'!" interjection right before the instrumental break.

I love this song, although I am not to fond of the Python-esque falsetto call outs, but putting that aside, I thought this would be a perfect song to dedicate to Smithson, who has repeatedly accused myself of plagiarizing my site from his.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy the song. The video does not allow embedding, but if you would like to watch the video that appeared on the November 20, 1976 episode of Saturday Night Live, you can find it here. Also, if you'd like to sing along, I have posted the lyrics beneath the video.

Here are the lyrics:

This song has nothing tricky about it
This song ain't black or white and as far as I know
Don't infringe on anyone's copyright, so . . .

This song we'll let be
This song is in E
This song is for you and . . .

This tune has nothing Bright about it
This tune ain't bad or good and come ever what may
My expert tells me it's okay

As this song came to me
Quite unknowingly
This song could be you could be . . .

This riff ain't trying to win gold medals
This riff ain't hip or square
Well done or rare
May end up one more weight to bear

But this song could well be
A reason to see - that
Without you there's no point to . . . this song